


There's Got To Be A Morning After

by DaughterofElros



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Follow up to 2x06 Airstream scene, Malexa, Morning After, Other, Positive portrayal, threesome morning after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23867683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofElros/pseuds/DaughterofElros
Summary: After having a threesome with Michael and Maria in Michael's airstream, Alex wakes up the next morning feeling comfortable, but not sure what comes next.Fits within the events of canon.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 23
Kudos: 81





	There's Got To Be A Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic that sees the events of RNM 2x06 as positive and loving. If the premise of that portrayal is not your cup of tea, you will likely prefer not to read this fic!
> 
> This fic started as a private message discussion about the little moments I wished we'd seen as part of the morning after, and after reading Tasyfa's "Blooming Without Regret"-- which I highly recommend as a positive portrayal of that scene, I felt compelled to flesh my thoughts out into a short fic.
> 
> "Blooming Without Regret" can be found at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862817
> 
> Title from "There's Got To Be A Morning After" by Maureen McGovern

Alex wakes in stages.

It’s unusual for him— he normally comes awake quickly, assess his his surroundings in the same moment he opens his eyes. This wakefulness he eases into though, which he realizes the strangeness of even as he drifts toward consciousness. He’s not in his own bed- the light is wrong, even from behind his closed eyelids. But he’s warm, and contented, and he knows instinctively that he’s safe, so there’s no panic or alarm…just a desire to not open his eyes, to let himself fade back into sleep until someone else stirs.

That’s the other thing he knows, with complete contentment. He’s not alone in the bed. A deep, sleepy breath tells him that it’s Michael’s torso he’s curled into, Michael’s chest hair prickling the palm of his hand where he has it resting over his sternum. The scent of rain is unmistakable. He thinks he might even get a little high off the scent of Michael Guerin. The scent of him certainly makes Alex’s brain do good things. Distracted things, but good things nonetheless. He’s spent some time wondering if it’s an alien pheromones thing, and decided that he doesn’t really care. Liz or Kyle probably have answers, but he hasn’t felt the need to ask. Michael’s scent makes his brain glitch even better than it does for a man wearing a great cologne, and that’s all he really needs to know. Especially at about three minutes past the ass-crack of dawn when he apparently isn’t going to be able to just fall back asleep without his brain deciding to wake up.

He shifts a little in the narrow space, trying to make sure he doesn’t fall of the edge of the bed. There are fingers brushing his abdomen, too low to be Michael’s, given the fact that Alex is pretty sure he’s using Michael’s shoulder as a pillow. His mind fills in the details, reminding him about last night and the fact that the narrow hand with more pointed nails has to belong to Maria, even as he cracks his eyelids and sees her riotous curls on the other side of Michael’s torso. He lifts his head a tiny bit to get a better view— she’s tucked between Michael and the wall of the airstream, head pillowed on Micahel’s heart, her arm slung low over his abdomen, leg hiked overtop of Michael’s legs, like she’s hugging a giant body pillow. She used to have one in high school. They’d both curl up around an end of it during movie nights, argue over whose turn it was to make the popcorn.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, apparently.

Michael has his arm around her, tucked under the blanket, and his right arm is under Alex’s cheek. His head is tilted toward Alex, his nose practically in Alex’s hair, and it’s all just so…comfortable. Well, apart from the fact that his hip and his spine are going to hate him for sleeping on this mattress where he can feel the board beneath the foam, and Micahel’s arm is probably asleep, and Maria’s definitely going to be frustrated about not getting to take proper care of her hair before falling asleep. But that’s all minor, inconsequential in the long run. What matters is that this, waking up in bed with two people feels…good. Good enough that he really just wants to close his eyes and fall back asleep again. 

It probably should feel weirder. He’s seen what his best friend looks like in the throes of passion. Seen the man he loves be the one to drive her there. He’s felt her fingers twine with his as they each seek their pleasure in the body of a man they both care about, clutching his shoulder as they all move together. They’ve kissed, and it felt good. They’ve tasted each other on Michael’s lips, and that’s an added layer to the headrush it always is to kiss Michael Guerin. It should feel strange, that knowledge. Instead, it only feels strange to realize the awkwardness he anticipated isn’t hitting him, because I… doesn’t seem to be there.

He closes his eyes again, settles his head on Michael’s shoulder again, careful not to wake him.

The most amazing thing about last night, maybe, is how natural it all felt- the give and take and balance of it all, how connected they all were, on a level that had so little to do with their bodies, and simultaneously everything to do with them. It was like an entire world of connection and possibility opened up before him, and for a moment, every problem seemed like it had a solution. It feels that way now, still, when he’s the only one awake. He worries that the feeling won’t hold- can’t hold- once they are all alert and facing reality again. He can’t imagine what the way forward looks like beyond this bed, so he wants to stay in it as long as possible. Before last night, he’d never imagined he could feel something like this— hadn’t even truly let himself imagine it. And then, in the space of a few breaths last night, it had felt not only possible, but inevitable. Today, it’s the prospect of getting up and going back to normal that seems unbearable and inevitable. 

He wants to hold on to the improbable contentment of this a little longer, so he pulls the blanket back up where it’s slipped down from his shoulder, and lets himself start to drift off again, listening to the different rhythms of each of their breathing.

He hasn’t even really hit sleep again, just a pleasant floating sort of doze when his phone goes off and he jumps to alertness.

He grabs for his pants on the floor, fumbles to silence the buzzing, and actually answers it when he sees it’s Sheriff Valenti.

“Morning, Sheriff,” he says in low tones. “Can I call you back in about five minutes?”

“Take your time, Captain. Just figured you’d like an update,” she says tersely, with the sound of a woman who got no sleep at all the night before.

“I do,” he promises. “Five minutes.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, flips the blanket back so he can swing his legs out of bed. He look behind him, fixing the image in his mind— Michael and Maria curled together in the bed, and space enough for him there as well, the indent his body made in the foam of the mattress not yet faded away, the way Michael’s arm curves around where his shoulders had been.

He gets his leg on- and his pants as well— all within careful reach where Michael had instructed Maria to set them as he helped Alex out of them last night. He stands, looking for his shirt until the twinge in his chest and the bandage there remind him that everything he’d worn last night is stained with blood. Damn.

That’s the exact moment that a white t-shirt comes floating through the air toward him. It’s one of Michael’s, and a glance toward the bed shows him that he hasn’t been as careful moving around as he had hoped, because Michael’s eyes are open and he’s awake, looking up sleepily from the bed.

Alex plucks the shirt from midair, catches Michael’s smile as he pulls it over his head. It smell like laundry soap, and underneath that, a garden after a rainshower. Michael’s shirt, then. Alex owns a dozen shirts like this, and plenty nicer than it. But the threadbare cotton settling over his skin feels like a caress. Michael’s caress. He’s wearing Michael’s clothes, and that feels like something special. Seems like it feels like something special to Michael too, if his appreciative, almost hungry expression is anything to go by.

“Sheriff called,” he whispers, holding up his phone and using it to gesture toward the door. “I have to call her back.”

Michal nods. “I heard.”

“Sorry.” He genuine had been trying not to wake anyone. At least he hasn’t disturbed Maria’s rest.

Michael shakes his head, a soft smile on his lips.

“Don’t need to apologize,” he says. “Want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Alex put on his boot and shrugs into his coat carefully, trying not to pull at the wound from the awl too much, which gives him the opportunity to watch Michael bend down and kiss the top of Maria’s head before easing out of bed, gloriously naked, and incredible expanse of golden skin. Alex doesn’t even realize he’s licking his lips until he catches himself doing it. Michael slips into his own jeans commando, leaves his belt unbuckled. He grabs the moka pot from beside the stove, then takes a step further and presses a kiss to Alex’s temple, almost identical to the one he’d just given Maria.

“Go make your call. I’ll bring the coffee out when it’s ready.” Michael smiles before he turns back to the stove, pours water into the coffee pot, and it’s so soft it tugs at Alex’s heart.

He thinks about Michael’s words from the night before. What the hell are they doing? He’s not sure any of them know the answer. Maybe he’s even the only one with the questions. 

He hurries out of the airstream before he can feel too many pangs from th way his heart is clenching, before it’s obvious on his face. 

All he knows is that one morning with Michael Guerin’s soft curls and soft smile, making coffee in the early morning light isn’t enough. Not by a long shot. And having it for one morning might hurt worse than not having it at all. 

That might be the true hell of this— to know what a night like last night is like, and never know another one like it. That’s the fear he doesn’t want to admit. Hope that there’s a different answer on the table, that Michael wants…something with him, that there’s finally space for something to happen again in their lives.

Hope is the thing with feathers that beats in his chest, and he keeps it tightly caged. If he voices it and it flies away if he’s the only one with that fragile hope…that’s the greater pain. That might shatter him, and he’s not sure how many more times he can put himself back together. He can’t afford to be Humpty Dumpty right now, not with everything that’s going on and could blow the lid off everything, put everyone he cares about in danger— Project Shepherd, figuring out what exactly happened in 1947, Max’s return, Rosa’s still-secret return, his Father recovering, the threats posed by he brothers or any of his father’s other minions, he regular duties with the Air Force, Mimi’s disappearance, creepy murder twins… It’s too many spinning plates, and losing track of any one of them might be disastrous.

So he does what he’s always been good at. He takes a deep breath, quells his nerves, and hits the button on his phone to redial the Sheriff, add whatever pieces of information she’s found to his ever-growing mental files.

He keeps the plates spinning.


End file.
